I’m coming to you from my favourite chair, curled up with a blanket and a hot water bottle. It’s getting late here and we’ve closed the shutters against the chill. It’s the perfect blanket knitting weather or perhaps a thick cabled jumper and I’ve got both to pick between.
Last weekend, we took advantage of being able to travel and wandered back around Linlithgow Loch. With the historic Palace in our eyeline, we sat and enjoyed some loch-side knitting.
Continue reading LochsideTime seems to be the most precious commodity at the moment. Every time I look at the date it sends a shock through me. Crikey! We’re into the final third of the year and the season is starting to shift here into a more autumnal tone.
I rebel against change. It’s an instinct that I fight because I know the importance of change. But, sometimes, a little pragmatic rebellion on one aspect can help sooth the panic of too much change at once. In short, a walk around Dalkeith Country Park was in order.
Continue reading Dalkeith Country ParkJune was absolutely beautiful.
It was a strange month – I sat exams in May and got results in July. June existed in a sunny limbo, free of consequences but still trapped by the future. Thankfully, yesterday’s results were positive. Normal life jolted back into existence, complete with quiet Saturday mornings with my knitting.
But everything has changed because I’ve discovered dying yarn.
Continue reading Colour my cityOne round stripes are forever linked to the ships & seaside cowl I knit for my mum in December 2013. That was the month I got my offer to study at the University of Edinburgh, incidentally enough. I was tired after a term of A-Levels and had big, horrible exams looming ahead of me. Over Christmas, I mentioned to my mum that knitting something might be fun and within about 2 minutes she had gotten yarn, needles and a pattern from her stash and I was knitting her a cowl she’d had her eye on. Child labour of the worst sort, honestly.
It’s 8 am on a Saturday here and it feels like I’ve had a lie-in. My university self would be so confused. I’ve decamped to the living room with my blanket and a cup of tea (a smoky Russian loose leaf tea situation) and there’s pain au chocolat in the oven again. But instead of carrying my knitting through, I picked up my trusty project from the last few weeks: my crochet blanket.
So apparently, I’m going for monthly updates at the moment. Oops. Oh well. August has passed in a blur of getting ready for my first adult job, and by getting ready I mean getting my fill of sleepy days wandering around in pjs. Edinburgh was lovely and rained most of the time so I could justify staying in and reading and knitting. Then the inevitable happened last Monday: my long summer ended and work started.
June is a travel month.
The day after I wrote the last post, two things occurred. The weather got infinitely better and I measured my swatch for Bonny by tincanknits. My gauge was so badly off, I needed to go out into the sunshine and forget about it.
It is a favourite trick of mine to work out the measurements of the garment should I knit it at that gauge. I discovered this trick when chatting to my mother about a swatch she had just knit.
I suffered a betrayal yesterday. I called my mother to ask for knitting advice and she told me to swatch. I know, how horrifying?
(I guess you’ve found this. Beware all ye who enter here! Not really, but the title should be all the warning you should need. I’m sorry and you’re welcome.)
Knits and Rambles 